Page:Adam's reports on vernacular education in Bengal and Behar, submitted to Government in 1835, 1836 and 1838.djvu/325

Rh certainly rendered it practicable to collect materials from which a judgment might be formed of the state of the mental cultivation of the people. We have made geographical and agricultural surveys of our provinces; we have investigated their resources, and endeavoured to ascertain their population; but little or nothing has been done to learn the state of education. We have no record to show the actual state of education throughout the country. Partial inquiries have been made by individuals, but those have taken place at distant periods and on a small scale, and no inference can be drawn from them with regard to the country in general. There may be some difficulty in obtaining such a record as we want. Some districts will not, but others probably will, furnish it; and if we get it only from two or three it will answer, in some degree, for all the rest. It cannot be expected to be very accurate, but it will at least enable us to form an estimate of the state of instruction among the people. The only record which can furnish the information required is a list of the schools in which reading and writing are taught in each district, showing the number of scholars in each and the caste to which they belong. The Collectors should be directed to prepare this document according to the form which accompanies this paper. They should be desired to state the names of the books generally read at the schools; the time which scholars usually continue at such schools; the monthly or yearly charge to the scholars; and whether any of the schools are endowed by the public, and, if so, the nature and amount of the fund. Where there are colleges or other institutions for teaching theology, law, astronomy, &c., an account should be given of them. These sciences are usually taught privately, without fee or reward, by individuals, to a few scholars or disciples; but there are also some instances in which the native governments have granted allowances in money and land for the maintenance of the teachers.

“In some districts reading and writing are confined almost entirely to Brahmans and the mercantile class. In some they extend to other classes, and are pretty general among the potails of villages and principal ryots. To the women of Brahmans and of Hindus in general they are unknown, because the knowledge of them is prohibited and regarded as unbecoming the modesty of the sex and fit only for public dancers; but among the women of the Rujbundah and some other tribes of Hindus, who seem to have no prejudice of this kind, they are generally taught. The prohibition against women learning to read is probably, from various causes, much less attended to in some districts than in others, and it is possible that in every district a few females may be found in the reading schools. A column has been entered for them in the form proposed to be sent to the collector. The mixed and impure castes seldom learn to read; but as a few of them do, columns are left for them in the form.